High caliber AAA...

[Kirill S.]

In CM there is a 88mm Flak and a 90mm AA Gun.

And again, I ask questions:

Why are they not shooting at any airplanes in CM?

If they are too inefficient because of their low ROF and high caliber, why were they used in the war?

[lcm1947]

Boy, good question. I would think that they were effective in that if you hit a plane it would certainly go down but you would have to have alot of them to insure hitting anything. I really can't see that big of gun being needed against planes seeing how fragile planes are but I guess for distance they would matter. But again it seems odd even if that were their purpose. I really hope somebody knows and answers.

[Vergeltungswaffe]

Large caliber AAA was used for high altitude defense, against bombers, and so forth. For the low level fighter-bomber attacks being represented in CM, the crews would have no chance to get those great big bad boys whipped into line with a fast moving, low altitude, only visible for a few seconds, type target. So, they don't fire.

[Kingfish]

The larger weapons were intended for high altitude targets like B-17s. The smaller ones had a much faster ROF and traverse, making them ideal for low level jabos like the ones in CM.

[Doug Beman]

Kirill, these two guns were designed to go after medium/high altitude bombers (B25, B17, B24 or HE111, JU88 etc). Because they were supposed to be used in mass, individual gun ROF didn't matter much, and because they'd be shooting at planes very high up they didn't need to be able to change angle very quickly.

They're in CM for the same purpose that they became (in)famous in WW2: killing tanks. The Germans first discovered the power of the 88 as an AT gun in North Africa; it had VERY high muzzle velocity (needed to get an anti-aircraft shell up to 30K feet) and was very accurate.

What you're seeing in CM (low ROF, poor target-track ability) were weaknesses of the historical guns. The Germans developed a dedicated 88mm ATG (different mounting, firing mechanism, etc) that improved these factors, but not by much.

Another thing that we're seeing now that will change in CM:BB is that almost every tank in CM:BO has decent HE (most tanks have main guns of 75 to 90mm) capability, making life tough for static ATGs. In the early war years, when gun calibers were 37 to 50mm, it was very difficult for tanks to knock out ATGs (tank HE shells, much smaller, had to be much closer to do damage) and field artillery and airpower were much more important in knocking out real ATG emplacements.

DjB

[ 07-29-2001: Message edited by: Doug Beman ]

[Slapdragon]

German 88 and 128 AAA units often had 20mm Flak colocated with it to defend the emplacements against fighter bombers tasked to take out flak batteries.

[Spookster]

"The Germans first discovered the power of the 88 as an AT gun in North Africa; it had VERY high muzzle velocity (needed to get an anti-aircraft shell up to 30K feet) and was very accurate."

...

Just one point:

Actually, the 88 was used - with GREAT results - by forward German Panzer divisions against counter-attacking British and French armor during Spring, 1940. Still, I am not sure even if this is when the AT lethality of the 88 was truly "discovered" as I suspect that munition trials in Germany before the war revealed the gun's usefulness as a tank-killer. Cheers.

[Guest Babra]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Spookster:

Still, I am not sure even if this is when the AT lethality of the 88 was truly "discovered" as I suspect that munition trials in Germany before the war revealed the gun's usefulness as a tank-killer. Cheers.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Quite right. There is some kind of myth around the engagement at Arras as somehow being the point when Germans "discovered" how useful the 88 was in an antitank role. It makes a nice myth, but the 88s went into action at Arras with Armour Piercing ammunition. The antitank role had already been foreseen. Germans were well aware of the deficiencies of their light panzers in the presence of heavier allied tanks and had planned accordingly.

[Slapdragon]

I think Arras was the point that the 88 went from being a reserve AT asset to being a used and proven one. In the Polish campaign 88s did not engage tanks, either because they were not deployed with field armies or because there was never any reason to crank them out, I am not sure which.

At Arras, and especially with the arrival of the Matilda, the Germans were facing there first real opposition on the ground. In one case, a Matilda drove 3 kilometers into the German front and would have stalled the advance had a bunch of 88s not been rushed to meet it (of course the fact the British failed to support the plucky tank commander was an issue also). Until the long 50 came in, German tanks could not really right the British Infantry tanks -- it was up to towed artillery to do that.

[Guest Babra]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Slapdragon:

In the Polish campaign 88s did not engage tanks, either because they were not deployed with field armies or because there was never any reason to crank them out, I am not sure which...<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I can't confirm whether or not German 88s engaged Polish tanks, but they were definitely "deployed with field armies". The night of 8th/9th September, the so-called "Night of Ilza", saw I/Flakregiment 22 heavily engaged with the Polish 16th Division in the very frontline as part of Kampfgruppe Ditfurth (at one stage of the fight, crewmen of the 88s fought hand to hand with the Poles, the gamey bastards). They had been sent up to provide forward air defence, but due to traffic congestion the range-finding and communications sections had become separated, which rendered the batteries useless for air defence, so they went into the front line instead.

Though deploying 88s under fire came up in another thread, I ought to mention that on the afternoon of the 8th the 88s were initially unable to deploy in the open within a mile of the Poles without having the crews shot down, and remained out of action until nightfall.

Flakregiment 22 was instrumental in turning back the Polish attack with 20mm and 88mm fire, and very clever use of searchlights at night.

[Grunto IV]

i read somewhere that is was in the spanish civil war that the value of the 88 against ground targets was discovered.

andy

[offtaskagain]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Grunto IV:

i read somewhere that is was in the spanish civil war that the value of the 88 against ground targets was discovered.

andy<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I've heard the same thing myself.

[Bastables]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Spookster:

"Just one point:

Actually, the 88 was used - with GREAT results - by forward German Panzer divisions against counter-attacking British and French armor during Spring, 1940. Still, I am not sure even if this is when the AT lethality of the 88 was truly "discovered" as I suspect that munition trials in Germany before the war revealed the gun's usefulness as a tank-killer. Cheers.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

The latter, the Germans issued AP ammo to their FlaK units. That indicates that shooting at 'Hard' targets was expected and laughdable.

[Private Pike]

Its interesting that the British never really used their heavy AA gun the 3.7"(about 92mm) in the anti-armour role. I read somewhere that (in North Africa) this was because they prefered to use it to protect their supply lines from air attack, and that the Ger (man forward deployment of the Flak 88s left their supply lines vunerable to RAF attack.

Anyone comment, is this true or were the British just stupid.

[Slapdragon]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Private Pike:

Its interesting that the British never really used their heavy AA gun the 3.7"(about 92mm) in the anti-armour role. I read somewhere that (in North Africa) this was because they prefered to use it to protect their supply lines from air attack, and that the Ger (man forward deployment of the Flak 88s left their supply lines vunerable to RAF attack.

Anyone comment, is this true or were the British just stupid.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I think The British just never figured it out because of command politics, since the 3.7 inch (94mm) AA was part of AA command and not part of Ground Forces command. Same thing happened in all armies -- the AGF bucking the trend to bigger cannon, the Luftwaffe ground forces and procurement of non weapon supplies (like radios).

[Snake Eyes]

The 88mm Flak 18 was used by the Kondor Legion volunteer unit in the Spanish Civil War. It was used to attack bunkers and pinpoint targets with anti-tank shells, and against enemy troops, using time-fuzed HE.

The 88mm Flak was also used against the Maginot line in 1940. Anti-tank shells were used to disable concrete bunkers and armored turrets.

[ 07-30-2001: Message edited by: Snake Eyes ]

[Chad Harrison]

even though they may not shoot at the small fighters, they are a presense on the battlefield that should be present. the german 88 was used VERY often for AT/AP. the american 90mm was included im sure for the occasional times when a real echelon AAA unit is under attack. i remember seeing pictures from the battle of the bulge with large US AAA guns KO. they just add some flavor, and the allied tank crews in north africa sure knew what the german 88 was.

[Triumvir]

If I'm not wrong, the Germans realised the AP capabilities of the Flak 36 during the Spanish Civil War.

I presume that for CMBB, all Soviet guns will have AT rounds and HE rounds, to follow their principle that anything bigger than a rifle is field artillery _and_ anti-tank artillery.

It's actually a very laudable concept; why dedicate a gun to anti-tank or artillery when by changing the fuse and filler, you can let it switch from one to the other? Build it for high muzzle velocity and you can vary the charge accordingly.

Even to this day, Soviet artillery has HEAT rounds issued to all units, on the offchance that they may be engaged against armour.

When I was a conscript, doctrine was to use HE rounds against armour if ever we were overrun (but that would mean that we were pretty much ****ed to begin with). I wonder what our steel drill rounds would have done, though...

A question for Rexford; given the shape of an M107 155mm HE and an initial muzzle velocity of 924m/s and a single block of machined steel, would something like that be effective against, say, a T-72, at 500m? Or is that not in your speciality?

[JonS]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Slapdragon:

I think The British just never figured it out because of command politics, since the 3.7 inch (94mm) AA was part of AA command and not part of Ground Forces command... <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

But they all* came under the Royal Artillery, so your statement doesn't quite gel Slapdragon. Also, AFAIK, AA Cmd was purely a British Isles thing, so that doesn't work for the Desert.

Regards

JonS

*"All" being all things gun-like, including survey, searchlights, and balloons, which aren't especially gun-like, but there you go. Specific examples of 'gun-like' are AT Guns# (incl tracked SP AT vehicles), field, medium, and heavy artillery (incl tracked SP Arty), Coastal Artillery, AA artillery (40mm on up). Yup, the RA was a big regiment - over 1M men at its peak I believe.

# An exception to this is the 6pdr AT guns in inf divs, which after the widespread introduction of the 17pdr (mid '43?) were handed down to the rifle battalions. The grunts seemed to appreciate this, because it gave them some AT capability under their direct control.

[ 07-30-2001: Message edited by: JonS ]

[Valdor]

Large caliber air defense guns (used in the air defense role) did not attempt to score direct hits against bombers. They used high explosive rounds whose fuzes were set to burst at the same altitude as the bomber formation and shrapnel was the main kill mechanism--bunches of guns firing bunches of air burst rounds producing bunches and bunches of shrapnel were bound to hit something in a tight bomber formation flying straight, level and (relatively) slow!

(If you watch any of the old bomber movies, the black puffs of smoke over the target are large caliber air bursts.)

Needless to say, a few guns deployed in an AT role had very little chance of hitting a lone, small, nimble, fast fighter--who would probably be very angry if you actually shot at him

[Maj. Battaglia]

One thing to note about Valdor's comment is that mostly these proximity fuses had to be set by hand, i.e. the crew had to determine the rough altitude and set the fuse. Later in the war the US used radar (I believe) proximity fuses against aircraft. I saw a documentary that featured a P-47 pilot who spoke of how effective these shells were against his plane when he came under friendly fire! Fortunately for him the P-47 was a tank. I do believe he was at a fairly high altitude when this happened.

I am not sure about using the 88mm (or 90mm for that matter) against fighters. Use of proximity fuses would certainly help effectiveness. In another Big Time game, Over the Reich, 88s do shoot at your FBs, though, when at lower altitudes.

By the way, there is a nice site dedicated to the German 88: click here

[Stalin's Organ]

The Brits did try to deploy the 3.7" in a ground defence role at least once, but pparently thye put hte battery in an already over-growded wadi and strangely enough it achieved nothing because it was never attacked.

However the Brits just didn't have the tactics to use something like the 3.7" properly.

[tss]

Valdor wrote:

Large caliber air defense guns (used in the air defense role) did not attempt to score direct hits against bombers. They used high explosive rounds whose fuzes were set to burst at the same altitude as the bomber formation and shrapnel was the main kill mechanism

On the contrary, after it was found out that "area barrage" didn't really work and bombers got through with only slight losses, AA units of most countries switched to "tracking fire" where each AA gun would choose a specific target from the bomber stream and tried to hit it with repeated shelling.

Note that this wasn't particularly effective until the advent of fire-control radars, at which point Germans could focus the fire of an AA battery against a single target.

There were some national differences in AA. For example, Germans concentrated on shooting down bombers, while Finns concentrated on preventing bombs hitting the target. In practice this meant that Finns had a standing regulation that only incoming bombers were shot at. The moment that a plane dropped its bombs, any AA guns firing at it would switch target.

This strategy would have been ineffective against large and rigid US bomber formations that dropped their bombs all together, but against more spread-out Soviet fleets it was quite effective. Soviet bomber crews found out about it quickly and a significant percentage of them (I don't remember the actual figure, but I think it was somewhere near 10%) jettisoned their bombs prematurely when the AA bursts got too close for comfort.

In the end, during the three strategic night bombings of Helsinki in February 1944, only 5% of the Soviet bombs fell in the target area.

- Tommi

[Andreas]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Stalin's Organ:

However the Brits just didn't have the tactics to use something like the 3.7" properly.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

From what I read this is very true. The British never understood that AT guns are an offensive asset, and particularly in North Africa they never seemed to fight a single battle of all arms combined, but fought three almost separate battles in which they were defeated in detail. In contrast, the Germans in Africa used their ATGs as an offensive battle asset and dished out a world of hurt to the Commonwealth troops there again and again.

An interesting comment I read from a vet in a British infantry division in Normandy was that 'the 6pdrs could not and the 17-pdrs never seemed to be forward enough to deal with the German armour'. The 17-pdr was a divisional asset.

Regarding the intricacies of command, while AAA and AT both were RA, heavy AAA was not organic to lower levels of command, while light AAA and AT Rgts were. This can of course affect their employment.

[Wolfe]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>By the way, there is a nice site dedicated to the German 88: click here<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Nice site. Does anyone have any recommendations on books that cover the development of various WWI and WWII guns? Especially one that covers tank guns of all nationalities. I know of Wargamer Intro to Weapons Data, but was looking for a good book (other than Hogg's 20th Century Artillery, which I have). Thanks.

- Chris